The Garden Swing - To The Moon and Back in a Day
Outside play was always packed full of imagination, as you can see from this old family photo I recently stumbled upon and yes, that’s me dangling upside -down on our garden swing pretending to be an astronaut. You see, the garden swing transformed into many things and that day it happened to be a space rocket shooting towards the moon. I was of course experiencing a lack of gravity as I floated upside down traveling through space.
The little girl walking to the side of the photo is Space Commander Justine, she had previously landed on the moon (by means of space trike, she was a little too young to be dangling upside down from a garden swing, Mother Ship bellowed from the kitchen window) and was now exploring its terrain. As you can see, her padded winter coat made the perfect space suit and protected her from any imminent danger from aliens of the hairy kind, our pet dog Micky was regularly involved in our play days and always had a role to perform. However, he would run and hide when the dressing up box was dragged out into the garden, he was never enthusiastic about being dressing up as the tooth fairy! This was over four decades ago, but I still clearly remember the thrill of dangling upside-down racing towards the moon with feelings of eager anticipation at the thought of standing on its surface gazing down to earth, through a wonderful pair of toilet paper roll binoculars we had previously made that day whilst searching for a runaway tiger. I didn’t quite make it to the moon however, I have been in a fortunate position through lifestyle choices, to have travelled and visited many amazing places around the world. As for Space Commander Justine, well she too enjoyed an amazing career working between Germany and New York as a designer for non-other than the great film producer Stephen Spielberg. So how knows, our creative approach to playtime may have contributed to the taste of adventure and to where we are today.
Comments